Abandoned houses and vacant lots are sapping the life from Ohio's urban neighborhoods and costing $64 million a year, according to a report released today that studied the problem in Columbus and seven other cities.
The cost could be 10 times as much, according to the study by Community Research Partners of Columbus on behalf of ReBuild Ohio, a coalition of government, nonprofit and community organizations.
Three Columbus neighborhoods -- Franklinton, Livingston-Driving Park and North Linden -- accounted for 4,868 of the 25,407 vacant and abandoned properties in the report.
"We designed this study as a 'snapshot' approach to quantifying the damaging impacts of vacant and abandoned properties on cities, towns and neighborhoods across Ohio," said Lavea Brachman, co-chairwoman of ReBuild Ohio.
The toll includes $49 million in forgone property tax revenue -- most of which goes to schools -- and $15 million for a variety of city services, including code enforcement, demolition, trash pickup, grass cutting and fire and police runs. The impact of abandoned and boarded-up properties is nothing new to Donna J. Hicho, who sees them every day as executive director of the Greater Linden Development Corp.
"At the moment, we have probably close to a fifth of all Columbus vacant houses in the Linden area," she said.
"It's not just a problem for people who live in houses and have closed them. … When we have boarded-up houses, that creates challenges for the other property owners on that street. They find it harder to sell their homes, to get renters and insurance."
North and South Linden combined have more than 1,000 abandoned properties, Hicho said.
The report looked at Cleveland (Detroit Shoreway, Mount Pleasant and Slavic Village), the three Columbus neighborhoods, Dayton, Ironton, Lima, Springfield, Toledo and Zanesville.
Columbus tallied nearly $200,000 in demolition and boarding costs, $185,000 in police and fire runs and $7.5 million in lost taxes, the study found.
Those figures pale in comparison to Cleveland's $4.5 million in city services and $30.7 million in forgone taxes.
When the total loss was spread out over the number of households, Cleveland's cost was $186 per household, Dayton's $182 and Columbus' $19.
The study used code enforcement records, police and fire expenses and county auditors' data.
Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman has focused on the problem for several years, initiating programs to demolish structures not worth saving and repairing those that are.
State Sen. Steve Stivers, R-Columbus, is the sponsor of legislation that would allow three cities, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo, to consolidate liens on vacant and abandoned properties more easily. The process now usually takes three time-consuming trips to court.
Columbus City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr., frustrated at the slow process, has been advocating the legislation for a year.
Stivers said blighted properties often become crime-ridden eyesores that depress the value of adjacent properties and the surrounding neighborhood.
The study team recommended the need to:
• Inventory all vacant and abandoned properties. This should be a city and state collaborative effort.
• Beef up local code enforcement, including improved nuisance abatement, crackdowns on absentee owners of abandoned homes and creation of home fix-up programs for lower-income residents.
• Develop new programs and tools to redevelop vacant properties.
• Speed up foreclosures, at the same time adding increased foreclosure-prevention protection for homeowners.
Funding for the project came from several banks, the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, Ohio Realtors Association and community organizations.
ajohnson@dispatch.com
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